Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Well, the Canadian Headhunter gave me a shout out on his Recruting.com site. He says he likes me because I put Recruiting.com at the top of my blog list. How can I not? They are the best recruiting blog out there and probably the only one that is dedicated to blog multiple times a day about my favorite topic—recruiting!

The post was pretty darn funny if I must say. First of all—he called me Stevie. My grandparents still call me Stevie! I think I should take this as a compliment coming from someone that calls himself the “Canadian Headhunter”. By the way—Gerry Crispin’s article was so warm and fuzzy that it made me want to move to Canada. No..seriously—Crispin has a darn good point and you should take a look.

The Canadian Headhunter did correct a grammatical mistake on one of my postings. This is what I appreciate about this guy. He is dedicated to getting things right. This is what it should be about. By the way—this has been fixed. In my opinion a good blogger should act like a journalist. If something is wrong call it out. It shouldn’t matter if you like the person or not. Correct the error!

Now, as a final note, I did find it interesting the little Newsweek jab. Yes, Newsweek did screw up. But many ground breaking stories have come from unverified sources. The Watergate scandal is one of them. What would be the alternative? The media not take risks and only publish “safe stories”? Can you imagine what people would get away with in this world if that was the case! And who’s really to blame? Do you blame a kid’s parents if he murders someone or do you blame the kid? Newsweek publishes a story and a bunch of people kill each other and it’s Newsweek’s fault? Not in my book.

To get back on track, I’m honored to be part of Recruiting.com’s blogroll and to get the shout out from that crazy headhunter from the North. By they way—who’s idea was it to require passports as of 2006 to get over the Canadian border? It was probably us but what a stupid idea!

Sunday, May 29, 2005

Nelson Ferris of Nike visited our offices a couple years back. I will never forget the stories he told. In fact, the very nature of what he does is storytelling. He is the chief storyteller at Nike. He talked about the transition from Blue Ribbon sports to Nike…how he didn’t even know if Nike would be able to pay him when he first started; he talked about Nike before they hit 1 billion and the growing pains they went through. Any of these stories could probably be found on the web but it’s the art of how Nelson told them that made them so compelling and sticky.

The way Nelson told stories reminded me of my Grandfather. I always admired his ability to tell stories. He could be in a room filled with people and start to tell a story and the entire room would gravitate towards him. For some people telling stories is natural. Others struggle explaining what happened to them that day. Whether it’s natural for someone or not there is an art and methodology to story telling. Being a recruiter in an PR agency also gives me an inside look at what storytelling can do for an organization. But what about recruiting? Why should storytelling be important for us?

Storytelling is crucial in recruiting. A recruiter’s ability to tell a story is the building block of your organization’s relationship with the candidate. It’s what brings the organization to life for them. They may research your company, see the physical surroundings but until they can connect with a phonetic masterpiece their emotional attachment to the company will be no different than any other outsider. If you can bring them inside with a compelling story, one that is sticky, then you will have your candidate’s attention and possibly several others. This is what truly separates great recruiters from good ones. Their ability to tell a sticky story!

You don’t have to be an expert to tell a good story. There are several critical elements in a good story. Most of these elements are consistent in stories throughout history. I don’t claim to know them all but here are few to consider as well as examples of how they might be used in a corporate setting:

1. The Plot: Maybe this is your organization’s win of a major account or client2. The Struggle: The unbelievable feat your company had to overcome to win3. The Antagonist: This is your company’s competitor (If Gates this is Jobs)4. The Hero: The one person in your company that helped overcome the obstacles5. The Win: How the Hero and the team celebrated the win.

Now think about the close of an interview with an all-star candidate. Let’s say the candidate asks about your clients. You choose to tell them about your companies methodology for targeting and winning top-global brand clients. You also tell them about a recent important win. Think about how you can tell the story so it’s sticky. Do you talk about the struggle, the antagonist, the hero and the win? Or, do you simply tell them that you won this great account. Which one do you think will stick with them? Every question the candidate asks gives you an opportunity to tell a compelling story. Take the opportunity to tell one.

Thursday, May 26, 2005

There was an interesting article in this week’s issue of Newsweek around the future of television. Steven Levy wrote a piece around the technology and Conan O’Brien did a commentary around the television now and in the future. It’s a good article.

The most interesting part of it to me was the concept of tv blogging. It never really occurred to me that this would be a reality in the future. However, when you take into consideration that all TV is becoming digital, interactive TV will eventually be rolled out to the masses, thousands of networks and channels will be available to us and with continuous improvement of bandwidth we will be able to host our own television blogs.

In a way we are starting to see this with podcasts. But think about it, if the internet and TV have strong interoperability in the future then podcasts will run on your television. Then as bandwidth continues to improve you will be able to run full length video on your website which people will be able to view on their TV. The article also discussed TV on every platform and every device. So not only will we be able to broadcast to TV sets but we will also be able to broadcast to cell phones and other devices.

Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Here is an interesting take on blogging from Kevin Maney, click here. I’m not going to summarize the whole article because it’s good and you should read it. He did include some interesting and funny stats that I will share.

A recent Pew Internet & American Life Project study found that 16% of the U.S. population reads blogs and that 6% of adults have created a blog.

(According to "Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General," 6% of U.S. adults use specialty mental health services each year. Do you think it's the same 6%?)

I love working with people [who] challenge conventional thinking. Nowadays people throw around the notion of worklife balance as if it’s something we are all missing and desperately need. We should all have it. Then there are those that live at work and everybody tells them to go home, enjoy life, and you can see them gleam with joy when these words come out. It’s as if they sit at work and wait for people to tell them to take time off, only so they can turn it down and act like they are fulfilling some important void. The void being all the other mortals that actually go home and do other things.

I joined a casual conversation that a few of my colleagues were having about a year ago. I’ve never forgotten this conversation because what we talked about clicked with me. It was one of those…oh yeah, kind of conversations. We were discussing worklife balance when one person says—isn’t that an oxymoron. I’m like..what do you mean. She said think about it. Think about the very essence of the term—worklife balance. It then clicked. She was absolutely right. Work…Life….huh? Is work not life? Maybe we should also think about familylife balance. I would love to hear someone discussing how they are spending way too much time with family and really need to spend more time drinking beer with their buddies. Or how about sociallife balance. Wouldn’t be great to hear a college student talk about spending way too much time partying with friends and the need to spend more time with family and studying.

Why do we HAVE to think of work as separate from life. Is work that bad? For some it definitely is. But for others what would life be without work. When you are in a job that you are passionate about, that you studied hard and worked hard to achieve and are in a place where you can make a difference in the world how is that not rewarding, stimulating and worthy of a solid chunk of your time. For some work is their life and I don’t look down on that. Do any of you watch the show House? House essentially works late into the night to save lives. When he is home he is either sitting as his piano or popping pain pills. His colleagues tell him to go home or ask him if he slept at the office again with a disapproving look. But what else does the guy have to do. Why do people care? The guy gets most of his fulfillment from his job—it is his life. Instead of people saying they need worklife balance they should just say they need to spend more time with their family or want to take a vacation. Stop separating work from life. If you absolutely need to look at work as separate from life then you should really consider finding a new career.

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

This is a plug for a great espresso catering vendor we used in the Portland market. If anybody out there needs to host an event and wants to serve coffee/espresso you may want to consider these guys....

The Waggener Edstrom Staffing team contacted Gretchen Oberle with Best in Brew for the launch of our new/re-invigorated employee referral program. We wanted to do something this year to get people energized and passionate about the program again. We wanted something people can see, touch, taste and hear. We decided that we would give away a Vespa Scooter! We developed a launch event that had a quaint European feel. We borrowed a red Vespa Scooter from the local Portland Vespa dealer and had Best in Brew come in to serve espresso.

The event was a big hit! Best in Brew came in early to get set up. They were very open to setting up their cart in a location that we chose and let us put marketing materials up on their cart. We placed our Vespa near their cart and a large retro picture of Henry Fonda behind the Vespa.

We then announced to our employees that we would be serving free espresso! Our employees came in droves and Best in Brew moved them through quickly. We have tried other coffee/espresso caterers in the past but their coffee was bitter and the lines were slow. Best in Brew made excellent drinks. Many people came back for seconds—including the Staffing team! The entire event was a huge success and I believe the biggest attraction was the free lattes. The Best in Brew staff were very friendly and polite and excellent to work with as a vendor.

Now "too much junk food man" implies that I just eat lots and lots of junk food during the day. This isn’t the case--well, there is more to the story here. I hit this energy lull from just before noon until about 3pm. There is an absolute energy lag and I need to constantly supply myself with nutrition. Now the reason I call myself I junkie is because I prefer to swipe and mooch the snacks off of my colleagues as opposed to buying my own. Call it denial, or call it what you will. I just have to do it.

My colleagues don’t get it. They don’t get why I don’t just go to the store and pick up my own snacks. Here is the scoop. If I go buy the snacks that means I’m admitting that I have a problem. That doesn’t feel good. I would rather think I don’t need all of this food and then just “borrow” the occasional granola bar to keep me going. Also, it’s just fun to hear your colleagues complain about mooching their food. They probably get a little annoyed with this but why not give people something to complain about during the day that doesn’t relate to tough clients or losing good candidates. It’s nice to have some harmless conflict every once in a while.

Now they have started to lock their drawers when they go on business trips which makes the act of “borrowing munchies” even more taboo—and of course this makes it just that more tempting. They cause me to have to go on covert munchie missions in between sourcing and phone screens.

I’m a recruiting, caffeinated, sugar junkie. The life of the recruiter….can anybody relate? By the way, Too Much Coffee Man is my idle! Too Much Coffee Man

Monday, May 23, 2005

John Sullivan posted a story today "Making the Business Case to Shareholders--It's Never Happened Before!"...it's a good article. If you haven't read it yet go to: ERE Article.

My favorite part of the article is about branding the recruiting function internally. This is something that I believe whole hardily and most people are just like, huh?..when you bring it up. If your department is truly operating like a business within the business, and you treat the hiring managers like your customers, then why shouldn't you market your services. It's the same as any other business. You want your managers to know the tools that are available to them and create a campaign that makes it clear what your service is about and how to use it.

You also want to invoke emotion within your organization when people think of your group. Do you want people to think of your IT department or accounting and finance departments as more friendly, business savvy or easy to work with then your department--absolutely not! Think about your favorite brands out there and what they represent. The executive team at Harley Davidson was asked once what their brand represented--they eventually came back with..."it's about a middle aged accountant in a boring job who can put on chaps and get on a Harley and feel bad as they ride through town". What is Nike's brand? What kind of emotion to you want your recruiting team to elicit when people think about it.

John Sullivan points out a few ideas to help brand your team. You should also look at how to carry your brand through everything you do. Do your e-mails carry your brand, your programs, etc.

We recently launched a new employee referral program where we wanted to show the more edgy, exciting side of recruiting. We are giving away a Vespa, we did a launch event, supporting marketing materials and carried our brand through then entire event. You would be amazed how the perception of a team, the teams intelligence, status can all be affected through strong brand. It will help you gain the resources you need and get the job done. You will quickly find the ROI when you see how much easier it becomes to get the resources your team needs.

Friday, May 20, 2005

They say moving to a new home is one of the most stressful things a person can do.

I can tell you that moving my blog to a new home was no stress at all. I originally hosted my blog on MSN. It was a good site in terms of convenience—I could access my blog through MSN messenger. And no matter what anybody says messenger is by far my favorite IM tool.

The reason I changed is because MSN is a little too brand heavy for me. It’s like having a book and the most noticeable thing on the book is the publisher. No author would be happy with that. With Blogger they put their brand secondary to your own. Blogger only uses a small logo on your page. Other than that you have a lot of editing control over the look and feel of the page.

Are doctors and recruiters really the same? Maybe the end result of what we do is different—they save lives and we give jobs. However, I would argue that there are more similarities than we care to admit. Unfortunately, most of these similarities come in the form of shortcomings….

1. Doctors have you schedule appointments in the middle of your work day. There is no regard for those of us that have full time jobs. They also have no problem making us wait once we show up at the appointment.

2. When you schedule an appointment you never get to talk to the doctor to see if you even need an appointment--you talk to the assistant that can't tell you anything.

3. Once you get into see the doctor you feel like you are talking to a robot. They ask you questions as they look down at your chart. They look into your eyes once every 10 minutes. When they are done asking you questions you usually walk away with no diagnosis. You are just given some prescriptions for the symptoms and told to come back in a couple of weeks to see how things are going.

4. If they do take blood or you have you take a diagnostic test you usually never get the follow-up call. You have to call the doctor to find out whether you are living or dying. Even then you usually talk to an assistant and they say that they will send a letter.

5. When you have your follow up meeting they usually forget what you even talked about from your first visit. They told you to come back if you are still feeling the symptoms--you say you are and then they tell you to come back in two weeks again.

Now let's take the world of recruitment....

1. Most recruiters try to accommodate their own schedules, not the candidates. We expect candidates to be available if they really want the job.

2. When the candidate is setting up the appointment or wanting information about the job they are often speaking with the coordinator, not the recruiter. If they have questions the coordinator usually needs to find the recruiter to get the answers.

3. When we are interviewing candidates we are usually taking copious notes instead of really interacting and having human conversation with the candidate. Do we really hear what they want, their concerns, strengths etc.?

4. Once they leave the interview many candidates never hear back; or it takes a long time for them to hear back unless they are someone we want now. Often the candidate is left to call us in order to find out what their status is.

5. The next time we talk to them we often forget where we left off. Are they strong and just not a fit for that role, or not a fit at all? Chances are, we have so many notes that it’s hard to tell.

A perfect world….

1. You can visit a doctor on nights and weekends; you can interview nights or weekends.

2. When a patient calls they talk to the doctor and he/she can answer questions over the phone; when a candidate calls they get a recruiter and they can get their questions answered over the phone.

3. When you go to the doctor they engage in a conversation with you; they only take abbreviated notes on the important elements of the conversation; with interviews we put down the note pad and engage with the candidate. Only jot down the most important facts.

4. When the patient is at their first doctors appointment they run the diagnostic right there while you wait; you walk away with a diagnosis and you get a live follow up call from the doctor within a day. When a candidate is in to interview they know right away if they are eligible or not; they then get a follow up call within a day from the recruiter.

5. The next time the patient comes in the doctor remembers exactly what the problem was, addresses that directly and reassures the patient that they will be by there side until the problem is solved. When a candidate comes in to interview with the hiring manager the recruiter meets them, reassures them that they are there for them and a decision is made that day.

There was a post on the Monster.com blog today about the monotony of keeping up with the blogosphere….that it's hard to keep up with your own blog let alone the 9 million that are out there. I actually thought the same thing when this whole blogging thing started--but then there is Google which enables you to sort out the good from the bad. Well…at least some of the top viewed sites from the least viewed.

Google your blogging flavor and you will come up with some of the best. Then it's a matter of weeding through these...doing a little monitoring and fine tuning it for the most influential. You wouldn't read all the blogs out there just like you wouldn’t read the 10's of thousands of publications that are out there. You pick the ones that you get the most reliable information from and those that are in your range of interest.

I do believe there are some great ideas out there. This is similar to the media. Should we assume that the media is better than the bloggers? When you have people dying in Iraq and the headlines on some of the publications are focused on the Michael Jackson trials you really have to wonder. Just because there are big advertising dollars behind something doesn’t mean it’s good.

Also—the media are outside. Bloggers are inside. This gives us a whole new perspective on corporations from people that work there. We of course need to beware of the infomercials out there but so far the best bloggers are presenting fair arguments just like the rest of the media. My vote is that blogs are good. They are just too new for us to completely grasp. 10 years ago could you have ever imagined being on the phone, browsing the web, working in several applications, e-mailing and IM’ing simultaneously? This is now the day and the life of GenX’ers...my guess is that blogging will soon be the same way.

Most of us have heard of the 60 Minutes test. It's actually a great filter to have for ourselves before we make a statement to a group or take a stance on an issue. For those of you that haven't heard of this I will briefly explain.

I you are about to make an important decision or make a statement about an important issue think about how the public would react if you were to interviewed about your decision or statement on 60 minutes. Would the public agree? How would it be viewed? It's a good quick test to see if your decision might have negative backlash.

Our SVP of People Services (HR) was joking about watching what she says in the meeting because it could end up on my blog. It was funny but also true. In a way the blogosphere acts as the latest 60 minutes test. Except now instead of having one portal broadcasting nationally you have many, many portals broadcasting to targeted audiences. Also--this new media has a much better insider ear.

The case of HB 1515 (making discrimination against sexual orientation illegal) in Washington state and whether corporations should take a stand either way on this is an interesting issue from a recruitment point of view.

Anybody that has worked in recruiting knows all to well how a company image directly impacts the work we do. We constantly get inundated with questions about the good, the great and the ugly about our organizations. A corporation is a living, breathing entity and it makes good and bad decision just like the rest of us. We get to witness the impact of this on the front lines. So--should organizations take a moral stand? Obviously it depends on the stand, who its stakeholders are..and what they stand for. Also, it depends on whether the corporation is a driving force of change and innovation--and the advancement of society.

But I think an even more important factor for taking a moral stand is timing. Unfortunately many have to suffer to get to the ultimate good or truth. An example of this would be those that helped slaves escape (the Underground Railroad) or those that hid Jewish people in their homes during the Nazi regime in Germany. At the time these were not popular decisions...they took enormous risks and had immense opposition. We look back now and they are heroes. Those on the opposite side are considered evil. And then there are those that completely separated themselves from the situation--they aren’t considered one way or another…maybe cowards. Now--looking back we can say that the RIGHT decision was to help those that were being treated unfairly.

In other decisions that haven't yet been morally sorted out by society it's much more difficult to take a stand. Does a company take the path of not having an opinion one way or another? Do they support a view they we know will ultimately be the wrong view? Or do they take a moral stand and suffer now so they can come out a hero in the future...of course...this shouldn't be the ultimate motive but more a symptom of taking this stand. The Zeitgeist theory pretty much sums it up--Societies Mind. Is society at a Tipping Point in terms of changing it’s morale stand for the good.

Either way, as recruiters we have to be prepared to take the hard questions from our recruits and make sure that we represent the organization fairly. It won’t do anybody any good to spin the company. It’s presenting the company in the best light possible while being clear and transparent. Allow our candidates to make a decision about a culture they will or will not want to be part of.

Best practices, strategy, key metrics, end result, objectives, key learnings….bla, bla, bla. Do you hear these terms often? If you haven’t then you probably don’t work in corporate America. How does this relate to the future of recruiting? It doesn’t. That’s the point. Sometimes the vocabulary that’s used to show our business smarts halts us from advancing the field.

I recently had the opportunity to facilitate a discussion with top-recruiting professionals from several world-class organizations. The discussion was supposed to be focused on best practices. Before we got into it I had made a decision not to go the route of best practices. Think about it. If we want to advance the field we have to do more than refine practices that haven’t changed for the past 100 years.

I pushed the group to go beyond everything we know and think about what they would do differently if resources and money were not an issue. To think about some of the changes we are seeing globally and what we should do now to address these. We put the business jargon aside and the conversation started to get interesting. Here are the “top 5” ideas this group discussed. Do them now if you dare.

THE TOP 5 FUTURE OF RECRUITING IDEAS

1. Hire an on-line media expert. Let’s face it, the media landscape is changing dramatically. Part of our function is to disseminate the company brand to candidates. If we can’t master the new media then we will not have the ability to convey the brand to our target audience. Blogs, broadband, advanced search, wireless—these are all realities now. We need experts to get the word out on these various platforms and portals. We need the ability to target candidates using any device on any platform at anyplace during anytime!

2. Applicant Tracking Systems Move to Candidate Tracking Systems. Think about this. It’s ludicrous that we think in terms of applicant tracking. Applicants imply they are already in our system and are interested. We all know the majority of what we do is to go out and find the candidate. So why not have a system that goes beyond tracking what comes in. We need a system that reaches out and grabs the candidate.

Why don’t ATS’s implement a sales approach? Let’s say you research a competitor of yours. You find a name on their website and call them. They say no but call me back in a month. Your system should have a sales methodology that allows you to track, monitor and close on a lead even if it takes years to get them!

3. Bigger is Better? It’s amazing that we are still running recruiting departments like we are in the industrial revolution. We ALWAYS hear that we don’t have the right candidates at the right time in the right place. Okay-maybe not always but you catch the drift. Take my organization for example. We are a 600 person PR agency and we have a research team that supports our main operational function. This is a team of 30 people. Our recruiting team has 8 people supporting the same group. 30 people providing research and 8 people providing talent. Research is predictable. Talent is fluid, moving, changing, deciding, contemplating, and emotional. Does this make sense?

Knowing that talent is, and will increasingly be, the differentiator of business in the future, why, why, why do recruiting functions continue to operate on the notion of more for less. Technology may help offset this but it’s not going to close the deal on an executive candidate with three offers on the table. Technology isn’t going to help someone decide whether or not to relocate his or her family across the country. We got to go beyond building staffing teams on a bulimic model.

4. Build a Global Network. It’s obvious that not all companies have operations in other parts of the world but eventually this may be a reality for even mid and small size businesses. With the labor shortages imminent and the globalization coming to a head we discussed building a global network of recruiters. Find out how recruiting is done is various parts of the world, who is doing it, and start building relationships with them. When the time comes to start recruiting in these areas you will be one step ahead of the rest. Third world countries, like China, are doubling and tripling the amount of PhD’s they are churning out of their educational system. These PhD’s may not be at the same standard as US degrees yet but having numbers of PhD’s is good and we need to be prepared to tap into these candidate pools.

5. Corporations build Universities. There were a number of healthcare and mechanical trade recruiters at our discussion that said there is a major shortage of people in these areas. Both industries pay well but you don’t have many people entering the workforce and there are many capable people out there that just don’t have the technical training or skills. These are industries that are contemplating how to build their future workforce outside of the standard educational system. Other industries already get this. There was a recruitment representative from one of the Big 5 consulting firms that said they do this now. They have an internal university to churns out top consultants. Why aren’t other industries like the trades and healthcare following suit?

It’s not enough to look at best practices in HR and recruitment. We need to go beyond this and look at completely changing the —(sorry, used corporate jargon again). Let me state it differently. We need to not let past behaviors alone be the guild for our future. The industry needs to be flipped on its head and pushed into the new millennium. Cheers to all the brave recruiting professionals out there that are bold enough to take on the challenges ahead.

I'm typically an early adapter of technology--but I'm also a skeptical one. I want to know that it's going to make my life easier and do what it's intended to do. I have to say that at this moment I'm still skeptical about Jobster. I have a lot of respect for David Lefkow--I read his blog and feel he is a smart guy. So I'm going to assume that is something good to come from Jobster. Also--I think the branding is excellent. I hear some people saying that the brand is a rip off of Monster--get it, Job-ster...Mon-ster. I actually thought it was a play on Napster when I first heard of it. Who cares though--the fact that we are even discussing this tells me the brand has penetrated our minds and hearts. Whether you like it or not their brand has market share. All this said--are they just a great brand at this point or is there substance? I got to preface with saying that I haven't actually used Jobster yet. However, I will tell you why I haven't and what my fundamental skepticism is based on at this point.

1. I still don't know exactly what it does. When I asked people that have used they even have a tough time explaining it to me. When I got the site it is inspirational but extremely vague. It looks good but I have a hard time figuring out EXACTLY what they do. The best explanation I have received so far is that it's essentially like LinkedIn.

2. Here is my problem if it IS similar to LinkedIn. LinkedIn is brilliant in the sense that they have a multi-faceted approach. There connections are based on new business deals, collaboration, job prospecting, staying in touch, etc. You essentially get a lot of people who are looking for jobs and are not looking for jobs. It's specifically not branded for jobs exclusively which drives a lot of traffic to the site. You get senior level people looking for business engagements and this is the beauty of it. You really do get to the passive job seeker. Jobster on the other hand is branded as a JOB tool. It implies that the person is looking for a job and therefore I don't believe it will get to the passive candidate as well as it claims. Again, this is assuming that it is in fact similar to LinkedIn. What I do think Jobster will be good at is hitting the semi-passive candidate. This is the candidate that is looking but not actively.

3. It's confusing on how to sign up. Before they launched they would send out these e-mails saying they wanted to speak with your company about this new exciting tool. Whenever I would send mail back I never got a response. Finally when they were about to launch I received an e-mail saying that they received my inquiry and would like to engage in discussion. When I replied to this, still, no response. Then the launch came and went. I checked out the site and there doesn't appear to be a way to register on-line, you can't find pricing information etc. It's very confusing in terms of how to get started with this...and for a web based tool you would think that this would be easier--it needs a better e-commerce portal.

4. How does it compete against the free networking tools like LinkedIn. There are some great prospects on LinkedIn and it is a rapidly growing network. What will they offer that is uniquely different that they can charge for? The other element is that these tools are only as good as the time you put into them. I am an active seeker of passive candidates. However, it's hard for me to even find the time to work leads on these sites. You have to put in a lot of time an energy. They may be great at finding passive people but they don't necessarily make your life a lot easier! That said--I'm a big, big fan of these networking tools and I think the work you need to put into it is worth for what you can get out.

On a positive note--as I mentioned in my first paragraph...I think their branding is brilliant. In my opinion they already have a more recognizable brand among recruiters than LinkedIn or Spoke. Does this brand hit passive candidates though--hard to say at this point. I do think if they can make it more clear on their site about what they actually do, create an easy to use ecommerce portal and have pricing that justifies the ROI then it can be a good thing. I guess we will just have to wait and see.

Everything evolves--some things evolve rapidly and other things evolve slowly. In the case of my blog it will evolve quickly. Did you know that the tallest people and the shortest people in the world live within several miles of each other in Africa--that's a different story though. I just got back from a PR confernece--I'm not a PR practioner but I recruit PR people for the firm I work for. There was a lot of talk around how blogs were changing the media landscape. The one thing I took away from this was that blogs could be used for really good things--as long as people posted honestly and produced content that was useful and forward thinking. So I'm changing my blog for the good of the communmity. The recruiting community is the one that I'm focussed on. I've read several recruiting blogs and I haven't been impressed. It's not to say that there aren't good ones out there--I just haven't seen anything with real substance yet. You see the same old stuff. Not only that, you see the same old underlying business solutions presented for every industry. I don't see anything that is really ground breaking...so, this will be my attempt to break ground...some rules --I will probably start writing a little more in bullet style; straight to the point and content rich --My stuff will be raw, edgy, maybe controversial in the field--but always honest and fair --I won't dog a product or process unless I know it thoroughly And that's about it--the purpouse will be to help better the field. I'm getting away from writing about health, although--I may mix things up a bit from time to time.